I Won’t Cheat Why is cheating an issue? The following presentation will review the Academic Honesty Policy at La Jolla High School.

What is Academic Dishonesty? 1. What is it? 2. What is cheating? 3. What is plagiarism? 4. How can we prevent it? 5. What are the consequences?

Definition Academic Dishonesty: Acts of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to, the following:

Cheating—distribution or use of external assistance relating to an examination, test, quiz, homework, project, or the like, without express permission of the teacher. Fabrication—falsification or invention of data, citation, or other authority in an academic exercise. Plagiarism—use of another's ideas, words, or work as one's own. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the misuse of published material, internet material, and the work of other students. Theft or Alteration of Materials—unauthorized taking, concealment, or alteration of student or teacher materials.

Is This Plagiarism? Cheating? “Hey, did you do the homework in Mr(s). X’s class? Can I borrow it?” “Sure.” Then the student copies the answers and turns them in as his/her own work. Is It Wrong?

Copying from Another Student This is the most difficult form of cheating for teachers to catch. If the answer for #1 on the homework is A, or 4x, or George Washington, or anything that is a short answer, it is difficult for the teacher to determine if a student found the answer by doing the work, or by copying it from a fellow student.

Did These Students Copy?

Did They Copy? Go back and take a look at the “fill in the blank” at the end of line 3; it’s the part about the length and form of new shih poems.

How Can You Prevent It Listen to your teachers when they tell you: don’t share your work. if you copy, then you are not doing the brainwork…the brainwork is why you were given the homework to do in the first place. the information you did not process (because you copied) will most likely show up again on a test you will have to study more because you have spent your study time copying instead of doing the brainwork from the beginning

What Teachers May Do… Teachers can design a variety of assignments so the majority of your homework assignments are not short answer or fill in the blank. Teachers can: ask students to show work. grade worksheet or short answer types of assignments for credit only, then, to ensure students know the material, give a homework quiz asking students to answer questions relating to the questions that they did earlier on their homework. confront students that teachers see copying homework while sitting with their friends before school or before class. Give the copied work to the student’s teacher.

A Student Example The prompt asked the student to pick a place he had visited, ask a question about the place, and research the answer. This student selected the Coliseum in Rome, but the title immediately indicates that he has not answered a question about the Coliseum; he has not responded to the prompt completely.

Is This Plagiarism?

Is It, or Not? The introduction is a combination of facts that appear to be written in his own words. He gives credit to two sources. But, does he answer a question about the Coliseum? And what does TurnItIn.com have to say about it?

TurnItIn.com Here is the same paper, with the colored text from TurnItIn.com that indicates that text has been taken from another source. Different colors mean different sources (each has a number). Overall, the report indicates that 69% of the paper was copied from Internet sources.

Know the Assignment Many writing assignments ask questions about a topic--it is more difficult to find a paper on the Internet about “What kind of engineering did it take to have real sea battles at the Coliseum?” then it is to find one about the Coliseum in general. Therefore, it is better to write the assignment to match the prompt--and it’s the right thing to do.

Be a Writer! If you pull facts from various sources, arrange them in your order, rewrite them in your words, give credit to your sources, use direct quotes when appropriate–then the paper becomes your own thoughtful work, and not a copy of someone else’s thought process.

Example of Sentence Combining Practice finding a few facts then combining the facts into a sentence that you write on your own. Actors often had to be creative with special effects in plays during Shakespeare’s time, hiding bladders full of pig’s blood under their costumes to create bloody fight scenes, or rolling cannonballs to sound like thunder (Martin).

Note Taking Take notes. Writing one fact per notecard, etc. forces you to paraphrase and creates fewer chances for you to lift chunks of text (plagiarize) from your sources. Notecards also allow you to combine facts from various sources. You can shuffle/organize the notecards by topic, which is a great way to use synthesis.

More about Plagiarism Plagiarism can occur in situations beyond writing. The College Board has a definition for plagiarism regarding copying artwork:

“It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law to simply copy a work of art (even in another medium) that was made by someone else and represent it as your own." The College Board can give a score of 0 on a plagiarized AP art portfolio.

Submit Your Own Work A student plagiarized art submitted for an AP art portfolio in at another school, and you can imagine the embarrassment when this copied work appeared in the yearly AP Poster, and the actual artist recognized the original. The moral of the story: Always submit your own work.

What Can Students Do This advice is posted in most English classes and in the library. The poster advertises a book by Barry Gilmore about plagiarism.

Consequences In all instances of academic dishonesty, a referral will be placed in the student's cumulative folder and parents will be contacted. Any student guilty of academic dishonesty will receive a zero on the affected activity. That zero may not be dropped from the record and will be averaged into the student's grade. Upon a second instance of dishonesty in either semester of that course, the student will be removed from that course and receive a final grade of F/U.

Beyond High School Plagiarism has consequences beyond high school. If you are severely disciplined for committing plagiarism more than once, it will affect any recommendations for college that teachers and counselors at this school may write for you.

College Application On the Common Application for college, you must answer the following question: “Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any educational institution you have attended from the 9th grade…related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct that resulted in a disciplinary action…?”

If you never plagiarize, then you don’t have to worry about how to answer that question on your college application. Also, keep in mind that if you dare to plagiarize once you get into college, when you’re caught, you will most likely be expelled from college.

Plagiarism…Conclusion Ask the teacher’s expectations for an assignment if you are unclear. Learn the consequences and expect to be held accountable. Don’t plagiarize. Practice combining/synthesizing facts and asking research questions; use your own words, thoughts, and conclusions. Note: Here at LJHS we use MLA format for research papers.

Presentation by Carole LeCren La Jolla High School September 2009 (updated September 2014)